


this awful energy

by goblindaughter



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblindaughter/pseuds/goblindaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matska Belmonde and the Old One make a deal. </p><p>There are...ramifications.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this awful energy

**Author's Note:**

> Anger gives you fic-writing wings, apparently.

_Now:_

The glass crunches and her heart goes to dust and she-- 

burns she burns she burns it hurts so _much_ and she’s not ready she doesn’t want this there is still so much to do so much to see so much to devour 

and the Gate the Gate what will it do with her death what will it _do_? 

But worse-- 

_Oh, Mircalla, how could you?_

\-- 

_Then:_

Down in the dark of the Corvae tunnel, beside the great pulsing bulk of the Old One, stands Matska Belmonde. And beside her, Lola Perry--so _small_ , so wrapped in someone else’s cloying will that it’s truly a wonder she can still see straight. She’s said not a word since she told Matska she’d be following her here. Perhaps she can’t speak. Perhaps she’s not there to speak. 

It doesn’t particularly matter, right now. 

(There is more she can’t remember. More Perry said. More she said. Important things, things of power...But it’s shadow-cloaked, faded and sepia, slipping through her fingers like the wind.) 

The sound of the Old One’s breathing fills the crater, great bellows-pulls of air, edged with the slightest hint of a moan. Such _pain_ in that one sound, so much the air nearly sings with it--and the smell, like a thousand thousand beached whales and a poisoned sea. One could almost feel sorry for the thing. 

But she can hear the Gate, too. Or what she thinks must be the Gate--that sharp-edged smell, almost like ozone, almost like roses, almost like blood; that high pervasive hum. The ravenous gnawing in the pit of her stomach that _is not hers_. 

It has been so long since Matska Belmonde has known fear. 

(Oh, yes, she _is_ afraid. To not be afraid when one of the Gates to the end of all things wants to swallow her whole would be the height of foolishness, and she’s never been in the business of lying to herself. She owns everything she is. Simpler that way.) 

_Hurts hurts it hurts,_ wails the Old One, voice a tidal wave, a hurricane of sound-that-is-not-sound. _It hurts I hurt_. 

”Shh.” Matska lays her palm flat against its side. The flesh-that-is-not-flesh _ripples_ under her hand, warm, clinging to her skin. “Shh. I know. I know.” 

”Do you know what you’re doing?” Perry’s voice is mirror-flat, and when Matska turns to look at her, she sees that her eyes are clouded and staring at nothing. Trauma response, or the early stages of possession? If only she knew her well enough to tell. 

_Hurts,_ sighs the anglerfish, _Hurts._ And: _Enemy._

Does it mean _her_? Martha Stewart’s misbegotten love child? No--surely it would have called in the cavalry, so to speak, if the enemy it meant were so close. The Lugenbaron, then. Corvae. Both, perhaps. 

If it were younger, or if she were older, she’d be able to understand it better, but they are so far apart--the Old One is so alien, so _other_ , separated from her by aeons and an endless dark sea. This is the best they can do. 

She wishes Mircalla were here. She wishes this with a fierceness that sings in her bones--oh, to have her sister beside her; oh, to swallow Silas whole together. But Mircalla’s choices are her choices and what’s done is done and she has no time to go back for another try at convincing her. 

”Yes,” Matska says at last. 

(Prim little human or ancient evil piloting a piece of meat, she’s not about to let this girl see her waver any more than she already has.) 

_Life. Life, life. Yes?_

_This_ she understands perfectly. What it’s asking, what it will give... _Yes._ Neither of them knows what will happen, because even Maman never dared this, never even dared ask--but both of them know what must be done. “You and I,” she breathes, “Have a deal.” 

She strokes it gently, almost tenderly, and it shudders and sighs and opens its skin just the slightest bit, spilling light-laced red over her hand. Slowly, carefully, she leans down and opens her mouth.

She only takes a little. 

But the tide of its blood--so sweet, so _strong_ , a newborn star singing in her gut--sweeps her away into the dark anyway. 

\-- 

_Now:_

Matska opens her eyes. 

And _screams_.


End file.
